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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (46849)	1/26/2008 2:38:28 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542059

I think if you look at the advertising that lures young men to enlist- you see the memes I speak of. Heroes are good looking types, that will be chick magnets. I don't think the reality matters in advertising- and of course advertising and propaganda is what gets young men in to war- whether it's the recruiter in the strip mall, or the guy selling the meme to Spartan moms that they need to give up their boys to the army for the greater glory of Sparta. It's not about the truth of getting the girl, it's about the mythology of the "hero" and the "warrior". IMO, of course. I teach boys going off to the military- 17 year olds in some cases, who have signed on early. They have no idea about what they've signed up for (and none of them think they are going to Iraq.) I think men who have never been to war are much more eager to send boys than men who have been there. If you look around in the world, I think you see that. As for why- maybe some of the men who don't go feel diminished in their masculinity, and hawkishness seems to them a way to regain machismo (if I can use that term loosely). The loss of face in our society is not dealt with often, nor is it as obvious as it is in a country like Japan, but I think the same concepts apply here- they're just further underground, and they move us in ways we don't fully understand.